


Not as how you remembered me: why we never spoke after graduation

by only_lovers_left_in_genosha



Series: What Happens To Us Now? [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bittersweet, Chronic Illness, College, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Nonbinary Character, Other, Post-Graduation, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, University, its not that sad ok
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 03:18:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5851990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_lovers_left_in_genosha/pseuds/only_lovers_left_in_genosha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life happens at a pace - people lilt and morph when we're not looking - why haven't you two spoken in 6 months? what happens when you can pinpoint someone's location, but you can't find them - when they don't want to be found. </p><p>Things change and it's painful but if you don't adapt then there's nothing worth doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. open doors and closing gates

**Author's Note:**

> i havent been writing on anything!!! forever!! and if you read this story then congrats u can probably guess why.... i've not been well and i'm getting worse as time passes so please bear with me! as always... this is a personal piece because it literally always is a personal piece.... anyway thanks for the views on my other works as thus far!

It’s always bothering Akaashi now. That deep-set nag at the back of her mind. A low worry that all is not well. She always kept checking her phone, but they hadn’t sent an email back. Not for months now.

Her morning normally falls into this routine, dreary but comforting:  
Get up. Check her phone. Take a shower. Breakfast. Run to get the bus for work. Check her phone during a break. Work the whole day. Ms. Yamazaki drops her hearing aid somewhere and can’t find it. Go home. Have dinner, where her father will still be awkward. Her mother cheerfully holds up pictures of blouses and asks her which one she would like best. She’s so glad to have a daughter. Check her phone; “no new messages” – not from them at least. Go to sleep. Dream about better times – literally or not.

It wasn’t Kotaro’s fault. Not their fault that just after their last game, they got sluggish. Fatigued, even. Something they and doctors and friends who meant well tried explaining away as “a low mood”. A “low mood” that was present despite whatever their actual mood was.

She had realized, upfront. When it took them just that moment more to reach the peak of a jump, to start to run up. When it took them a bit more of a swing to get back a grin and get back into that swing. That rhythm.

She didn’t say anything. She told herself that it was because it was enough: she knew that they knew - and that they didn’t want it said. It was nicer than the initial pang she felt when it came to her mind. So, like citrus she washed it all down with a big gulp of water. Bid it to fade from her mind as a possibility. Because she didn't want to hand value to that thought. 

Because saying the words out loud would make it true.

So, no it wasn’t their fault. And it wasn’t because she knew too, not exactly, but vaguely in a sense that it made her an accomplice to whatever emotional fallout there was coming up next. So no, again, it wasn’t completely their fault: like how the boy who breaks the spider’s web, and the stick used to damage it is of the same fault. Maybe just unequal values.

But she knew that they’d self-crucify nonetheless. 

Like when they turned down that university for a volleyball sports scholarship. 

***

 

“Are you in your mood again?” she had asked after Bokuto still had their head low in a bow, as the doors slid shut and the volleyball coach from Tsukuba University walked out, displeasured. Well, maybe more from that – judging by the grumbled swears as they brushed past her.

Their head didn't rise. They were trembling. So badly that the vibrations rattled Akaashi’s valves in her heart and she didn't know what she could do to make it right. Especially when she didn’t even know what was wrong. To reach out, just put her hand on their shoulder and make that connection, it would be so easy. To just open that door and let herself in. She knew, even then, that it was what they needed, in that semi-lucid moment, now trapped behind stained glass and doubt in her memory.

But she didn’t do it. And maybe that could have changed something. 

In real time, she sloughs her forearm over her eyes.

“Hey, Bokuto.” She tried to make her voice a bit softer, desperately, but not enough that they would recoil from the unwanted pity. It was always eggshells.

“Don’t sabotage yourself, you know you deserve that scholarship. You’re one of the best spikers in the country. You proved that. They’ll reconsider if you run outside and apologize for your inability to commit to a better future.”

That made them laugh, low and timid – like stormy waves seen from a distance – and it was so completely unnerving. Something so out of character that Akaashi would normally consider the prospect of Doppelgängers (or instantaneous cloning), over this.

They stood up straight, wavering for a second. Running a trembling hand through their hair their eyes met, in the desolate corridor. Under an afternoon sun plunging into the cleavage of the earth. When we could finally become a horizon all of our own.

They gave a loud bellowing chuckle and grinned, putting Cheshire cats and Viking halls to shame – it struck so deep. Why did it? But the way the fading tangerine sun splashed the light across both their faces; oh it was a movie scene.

“Don’t think too much about it Akaaaashi! It just wouldn’t have worked out!” 

“wah-?” She had managed to exclaim, to begin her offense of the worst earful they would get for at least the next few weeks. Obviously, she was cut off.

“Anyway, I wanna do like, microbiology! In uni or whatever! I could still get in with an appeal!” Turning, they waved. “Hey though, lets hang out before we both split you know?”

Akaashi watched her closest friend, partner, captain, what-the-hell-ever; nonchalantly stroll down the hallway away from her. It took her a good enough few seconds to respond.

“ MICROBIOLOGY? YOU FAILED SCIENCES.” She hollered, before emitting a soft gasp, putting her hand over her mouth.

Angry. Why was she so angry. Why did this feel like a goodbye.

Kotaro kept insisting that this wasn’t a goodbye. They’d had many a few dates since that day. They’d talked. But even now, it still felt to her like their last conversation was in that hallway. Even if they had said only a few sentences to each other then, and they would talk for hours on end. Over parfaits; in Bokuto’s room; at McDonalds; Akaashi on Bokuto’s lap underneath a blanket of stars; in pancake shacks, as they picked out the whipped cream and pushed it onto her’s.

Kotaro (expectedly) failed to get into Microbiology, but did get accepted into a psychology course. Which was incredibly shocking, but that university didn’t really issue any particular subject that one must have excelled at.

When Akaashi asked them what they wanted to do with that degree, they (expectedly) just gave a blank expression then burst into throes of laughter – at nothing – to cover up that they had literally no direction in life at all.

She had sighed and told them, curling a lock of their hair around her index finger, that she was going to take a gap year – do double, no triple, volunteering. Her three areas of choice would probably a hospice, work experience in a general ward (not volunteering per say but), maybe doing rounds at an old folks home.

“Eh, you’re gonna be spending a year cleaning up people’s pee? That's literally not fun,” Kotaro whined, leaning back against the wall.

“You say like I’m doing this for fun… I’m trying to build up a resume actually.”

“Er why…”

“ I want to either do social work or nursing. For the former it depends on where you go, but the latter they definitely give a full-blown interview, in which they review experience and dedication as well as grades.

So no, I’m not spending a year cleaning up urine for a hobby. Not that I don't care about the people in need. Whom I actually love helping. With all my heart in fact.”

“ If this was a real interview like what you seem to think it is, then I’m sorry but I already wouldn’t hire you.”

So it was a talk. But it still wasn’t a conversation. It was a conversation if you would claim that reality TV was food for the soul. It was all feel-good and packaged and plastered. She saw them fold away their emotions, just that far under the surface -for once- that she couldn’t riddle them out. It felt like an extended goodbye. It was like prepping for viral release of a cell with all the virion just buzzing under the membrane, itching for lysis.

Bet Bokuto wouldn’t have known anything in that sentence. That's why she said they weren’t cut out for microbiology.

***

She rubs the aforementioned forearm across her eyes, starts to worm her way out under her covers. Her routine needs her and she had already placed a (meager) bet at which timeslot Ms. Yamazaki loses her hearing aid for today.

And she only sighs a little as she snaps her phone closed. And she pretends that her forearm isn’t damp. And she doesn’t see the buzz or the “new mail” symbol as she heads down the stairs for breakfast – probably natto oriented again (her mother keeps saying that soya contains estrogen).

Because it’s probably nothing, right?


	2. Catching Up or Catching Out?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> don't do things that will come back to bite you in the ass - like avoiding everyone you know for 6 months.
> 
> A.K.A its time to see what Bokuto's been up to, however vaugely!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for brief mention of suicide in the 2nd paragraph
> 
> edit (2/2/16): i went back to self beta this! im dyslexic and like i wrote this at 3am so ya

You will always be the thing that breaks you.

They heard before, about people who tried to commit suicide with a shotgun, but failed – some of them couldn’t get the pellets out and now they have those tiny fragments of their lowest point rattling inside of them.

Their lecturer in that one particular class wouldn’t stop harping on about it – and Kotaro couldn’t even tell for what their fixation of this topic was on really. Is it the tragedy of the scenario? Using humans as symbolism? Some twisted fetish? 

At any rate, they didn’t want to read those case studies anymore. And they were fairly sure that obnoxious B-style guy in the class was a borderline eugenicist. All the more reason to avoid…. Ugh.

The murky dream Bokuto was having, about running up and down empty halls, dissipated with the first blare of their morning alarm. These days, they set up about 3 to wake up, and another 5 to make sure they didn’t lose time as they got dressed to get going. It was such a (literal) pain to have to stumble up to turn them all off – but kuroo said that it deters from just rolling over to sleep again. She was right and Bokuto now attended more lectures – but at what cost?  
Continuing to ponder this, they loped out to turn on the kettle as they picked the sleep out from their eyes and rustled their bedhead.

Everyday was the same – an unrelenting scream of “pain pain pain pain” exuding from every single pore, down through every layer of flesh and viscera and right down to the marrow. It’s not like it stopped hurting, but Kotaro had finally become vaguely accustomed to it.

Though more in the sense that you can’t keep flies out of your house in the summer than anything else.

It was just a case of making instant coffee and toast to wash down the medication and (hopefully) grabbing that bus before they were late again and their vindictive lecturer got annoyed at them. Again.

It wasn’t even fair though…

Today seemed to be a good day to toe the depths – they could probably stay at the library for a good few hours today before they got too tired – and they could even go to the new pepper lunch that opened in the mall just 10 minutes away!

Kotaro sat down to shimmy on some jeans as they salivated at the thought of sweet, sweet beef.

It was the fastest limp to the bus station that they could muster – or at least it would be once they got that one cowlick to lie… They snapped up their walking stick before just remembering to lock up the flat as Bokuto began the snail’s race before the hellish bus driver took off without them again.

Their phone began buzzing wildly – not from Akaashi, as Kotaro was sad to note. But that ship already sailed, and it started with Kotaro sinking all of them, because why would you continue to text someone who never replied? It was pretty clear that it was over, and that – it was Kuroo.

Try as they did: she was impossible to shake off. And try they had, their closeness was unbreakable and her aura was infectious. There was some guilt over that they would still talk to Kuroo (however rarely) while Akaashi got the full cold shoulder but… it was just too excruciating. Bokuto shook themself out of it and took the call as they took enough long strides they could bear.

“Oi!!” came her brass voice, familiar to Kotaro as granny’s blankets.

“Ehhhh how are you, my main girl?”

“Shut up, but also I haven’t heard from you for like 8 years now – and I know you have a break coming up because –“

“Because what? Literally how do you know? Are you an esper…”

“What’s that noise, are you out? But also, as I was saying – I checked your university calendar literally on your uni’s website. Also I know you’re free, your mom told me and she even said that you didn't mention coming back like the un-filial child you are. I was thinking we could catch up by getting together our teams for a unofficial showdown!”

“I’m trying to catch the bus, my girl. Also I can’t make it back Kuroo, but you know I luff you.”

Her tone darkened suddenly. Not exactly angry, but aggravated sorrowfully.

“Nobody, besides your parents, have seen you for 6 months. This isn’t funny anymore because I’m worried – I thought you were avoiding me-“

“I’m not!”

They missed a step and nearly tripped, the bus stop was so close… but that dammed bus was closer…

“- but then I met Akaashi by chance and she looked seriously upset when I brought you up, and then I thought it was relationship drama, but then I found out that literally nobody has heard from you besides me, like perfect radio silence –“

As the blood was busy draining out of Bokuto’s face, the dreaded vehicle was approaching the lip of the bus stop.

“- and your parents know something but they don't tell any of us anything – they just say you’re busy, and like the only reason we know you’re still alive is because we see your instagram updates and”

Piling into the bus at the last stretch, Bokuto thanked the bus driver as they pressed the phone back to their ear just to catch:

“ Also your girlfriend is considering dating again ok? Your ex-girlfriend?? I dunno but she was invited to a goukon like on Tuesday and I don't even know what advice I can…”

Kotaro nabbed a seat just as the bus began to sputter to a start and was about to tell Testuro that she was rambling, until they heard her voice started to crack.

“ look I’m sorry, I know you’re busy but is there something wrong? I don't even know what to tell Akaashi and she just keeps asking after you, why won’t you let anyone see you?”

“Argh…. Kuroo please please don’t start crying because then I’ll know that this earth is set for decimation… it’s just that everything went bad so fast, and I’m starting a lecture so I can’t talk now, but it’s complicated and I’ll call you at 6pm? And we can decide then if you still want to meet up with me, but I love you and ttyl ok?”

They hung up, and from there it was probably going to be the longest 10min bus ride they would take for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact - this is more or less my average daily routine too


	3. throw my better self overboard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get to see how Bokuto's doing in school! How are your new friends? new friends? are you doing well? how are you feeling then? oh... Kotaro, what's happened to you? 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Someone call the ambulance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As someone who has at minimum, the same 2 chronic conditions described in this text - i may fall into terminology that's unfamiliar with people who don't have these - feel free to ask me about anything involving this in the comments. but do keep in mind that i do actually deal and live with the topics i'm bringing up here, so please be tactful. Being unsure and curious is fine, but not outright rude or invasive.
> 
> My OC Marina is in this but she won't be here for the bulk of the storyline, just mainly as a filler friend character so i can keep the logic & premise of the story that i started out with.
> 
> warnings for brief lesbophobia and if you have a severe fear of suffocation (or are emetophobic ig, but theres not actual vomitting) you will wanna skip the last part in this chapter?
> 
> the title for this chapter is from "heel turn 2" by the mountain goats! omg this chapter was long...

It makes them sick but they can’t stop taking it. They don’t eat as much as they used to – and that’s always so hard to explain. Mom, mom, I can’t take that much: but you used to right?

 

Why do they keep needing to explain, that nothing is as it used to be. Isn’t it obvious? It’s glaringly so to the people who only know the “after”, but it’s always harder to let go of the past, the image of the energetic kid who laughed too hard and sulked too often. Not the suffocation of the adult teen who’s golden moments flowed like water in and subsequently though their cupped hands.

 

The bus moaned to a halt – snapping Bokuto’s spiral of thoughts - finally at the appropriate spot, and they began the “excuse me but I really need you to move” mantra to bid the crowd to part ways. What is the honest point of the sign saying: “move to the back of the bus” when nobody does it.

 

The (hysterical) phone call from Kuroo, the news about Akaashi and just the plain ol’ chronic pain was making Bokuto feel leeched of colour; more so than normal. They eventually wove their way out of the bus and onto the street, threading into their pocket earphones that leaked Annabel’s new single.

 

 You wouldn’t think so, they guessed, but being sick like this was really isolating. It wasn’t a good week again. It hadn’t been a good week for a while now, as the days piled up and morphed into months. But you find some way to get by, get better. Get better. As a matter of fact – there was only one other person in uni that had the same conditions as they, and she was scowling at her phone right at the bus-stop. It was close to haunting their footsteps. Though they understood it – there was a good chunk of their lives where only they could understand each other.

 

“Morning!” Kotaro drawled, in an attempt to not sound like the world had robbed them of all human hope. She didn’t bite.

 

“Why the hell do you sound so lackluster…” She glanced up at them from her wheelchair, and locked her phone screen. “We’re gonna be late, you should probably awake 2 hours early as me – just a tip.”

 

It was pretty obvious why she didn’t have any other friends here, but Marina wasn’t all bad, just blunt. **Very** blunt. Also the only person Kotaro could relate with. That couldn’t be stressed enough. Her Japanese was largely choppy, but she was only transferred here for a year anyway. And then Kotaro would be the only one in Uni (that they knew of) with EDS and fribro.

 

“We’re in different courses, we don’t even have any classes in common; you don’t need to nag me! Anyway we’re even in different buildings!”

 

Marina waved her hand about before grabbing the rims of her wheels and then accelerating more than Kotaro could keep up with. Alright.

 

“ It’s all schematics – we have breaks at mostly the same time anyway so there’s no real difference. Also don’t drink cold things and take some ginger tea, you sound like you’re coming down with a cold.”

 

And then the self-proclaimed She Devil went whizzing off. There actually had been a tickle in their throat last night that wouldn’t clear. And they had a runny nose but it was nothing. At the very least, if they did get one it was clearly because she jinxed it, that aunty in a girls skin. Why did she even wait at the stop for them if she was just going to run off? Like, actually what was the point of that – she didn’t even say good morning. Ah well, must be a Singaporean thing? Or is she really just like that?

 

Bokuto made a prayer that they could avoid speaking to Kuroo at 6 if they just “studied” in the library until 6.30pm. Miracles could happen. Such as holding out that the 2 hour lecture that they were already 5mins late for would actually be shifted or cancelled. It was impossible to believe in divine intervention more than they did in that moment.

 

Make than 10 minutes instead. The lecture hall was on the fifth floor, meaning that Bokuto obviously needed to use the lift. And while it was true that many of the invisibly-ill students did not use mobility aids, having a lift packed full of loquacious students all with starbucks who threw Kotaro a guilty look as they jammed the button to make it close faster – was not probably likely to be full of the aforementioned chronically ill.

 

To make matters worse, when the agonizingly slow lift finally heaved itself back down to ground floor – it stopped at every floor on the way up to greet phantom passengers. A by-product of only staff and the mobility disabled being allowed to use the lift but with no regulation; meaning that able-bodied students would frequently poke the button on the hideously lazy lift on their respective floors, and then abandoned it when they decided that taking the stairs would be quicker. This also meant that Kotaro was going to be fucking late. -er.

 

“Oi come on!” Bokuto shouted (to unloving heaven probably), slapping their free hand against their temple. And then coughing, ever so weakly. “She didn’t just jinx it – she cursed me.”

 

When a bashful rush to an empty seat in the middle of the lecture, and the remaining one hour and fifty minutes of it was over (more about the lecturer babbling about the “ _elusive nature of autism_ ”), Kotaro texted Marina to meet up for brunch. A snack, whatever.

 

“ Hey, what’s going on with you?”

 

The guy who sat across from Kotaro would come to chat now and again, but normally sparingly. He did have shocking consistency with it, they’d give him that. What was his name? Ken? Kenji? His presence was so low, in all honesty…

 

“Hey hey! Not much really, I’m texting my friend to meet me for a snack, then I’ll head to the library before our next class – I lent Hijikata from the psychobiology course my notes for the Brain Sectioning and Behavior module, you know uh B60751A?”

 

“ Eh really? You take notes? I just leave it lol.” _Oh my god he really just said “lol” out loud_. “ You look kinda down though, you having relationship troubles with that girlfriend of yours?”

 

Ack. Total bulls-eye.

 

“I’m kidding, I know you’re not dating Marina – everyone just sees you around with her, but I don’t mind a bit of girl-on-girl action you know? She’s a huge troublemaker though,” Well that part was true, but it wasn’t going to be worth it to bring out the Cross-Gender Pie Charts to explain it to him. Not today Straight Satan. Let me be. I have only one mortal soul.

 

“I know you’re not that way though, it’s ok! People just think you look a bit like a lesbian – but I told them that you were only on a guys volley-ball team because they needed you to win!”

 

 **Not today straight Satan**. How does he know about any of this anyway, how does he – Kotaro’s stomach turned over. They needed to leave. Right now. Right-

* * *

 

“- And then I just got up and left without even saying excuse me or whatever, it was freaky as hell but I felt pretty cool then. But like, besides the fact that this greasy man-creep had intimate personal details about my past and life. And now I want to die 100%.”

 

The café on campus was generally bustling, but this was right before the lunchtime rush at just-about-sleepy 11am. The air was fragrant with lattes made in eighteen different ways and fair-trade coffee beans from five different countries. Bokuto mumbled the horrific encounter with a stuffy nose over a double shot espresso and a split doughnut with Marina (who was apparently the toxic lesbian).

She sipped her matcha latte and snorted, and proceeded to guffaw and yell what was probably expletives. Kotaro would never know because the last them they asked what “cheebye” meant, she shut up, flushed, and simply evaded the answer.

 

“All I did today was find out how many ways your urinary track could fuck up, and you’re getting this drama before lunch? Also you’re totally wearing your ‘ _kill me please kill me let me die god please kill me_ ’ emotion on your face. Perks of being a medical student, I guess?”

 

“Weh, that isn’t even an emotion….”

 

Probably one of the main reasons why they liked to hang with Marina at all was that besides reminding them of themself, she sometimes gave off the same aura that Akaashi did: the way they both could coax them out from these slumps. But also they decided it was better to not think about Akaashi. At all.

 

Marina went off on a tangent proclaiming that since Kotaro shared half a donut with her, that they were now infected with the Lesbian Virus, to which they retorted that they had succumbed long ago.

 

“Aha, don’t lie to me now, I see your sniffles and cough and I can tell you’ve been recently plagued by this – there’s no more hope for you.”

 

“HEY! The only thing I’ve been plagued by is you. You cursed me. I didn’t have this cold until you said it. How can my cold progress like this within 2 hours? That's too much!”

 

Ah, we have to get going for our next classes soon – they noted as they opened their phone.

 

Not long after, they both indeed went to amble on their own way, wandering out of the sanctity of the Café.

 

“Can you meet me after class, I need to hang out at your place until at least 6.30?” Marina was attention hungry and there was a good chance she’d say yes. It was practically sealed – she loved to go out and party instead of doing her studies. It was a perfect excuse actually, even if going out to the clubs with purple drank directly on the menu wasn’t really their thing.

 

“No.” Good chance shot down. “Stop avoiding things, I can tell you’re avoiding something. You’re easy to read.”

 

Ugh.

They both split and began to meander in the direction of different buildings, until Marina twisted around in her chair to yell,

 

“Oi! They won’t tell you this because they’ll retain info from you until your diagnosis, as a form of vicious torture – but fibro can weaken your immune system as a result of poor sleep quality, when you go home just go to bed lah!”

 

Well that would have been useful to know when it was first brought up with the doctors.

* * *

Right on the dot, the throat-clearing managed to morph into full on coughing right as they opened the door (early this time) to the B60751A class.

 

Hijikata noticed immediately, and flounced over to proudly produce Kotaro’s notes for them, thanking them for the “immense kindness in lending me your notes, I’ll try to stop missing classes”. The eyes of everyone else in the class who turned to them weren’t as full of adoration. It was annoying but again, you got used to it. It was the part where they’d all quickly look away and then pretend like they weren’t even alive – that's the part that they couldn’t stand.

 

Hijikata finished his hundred-word-essay of eternal gratitude and started offering them cough drops, and then just random dagashi that was in his bag. He looked like a seriously outrageous kid, always coming to class in some level of decora kei fashion, but he was deceivingly sweet. He was actually like some kind of minor child genius (coming in from second year in highschool), but was often absent due to hospitalization for several days related to episodes of sickle-cell crisis. Since Bokuto was similarly absent just due to bad days, for this single class they shared they would pool class notes and recordings.

 

They honestly wished that they could have had Hijikata Nobu in the same course, or adopt him. I mean he even still called out “senior senior!” for Kotaro despite now being in the same academic year as them.

 

Being around the chirpy kid reminded Kotaro of Karasuno’s Number 10 and the carefree days they had at training camp. Well, they weren’t exactly carefree, but they were so fickle and pure wants back then, just a mere few months ago. It really brightened their day to even sit next to him like a mentor and watch him furiously scribble line after line of notes.

 

This lecturer was kindly enough, and explained the topic with wild arm gestures and amazing gusto – even watching this middle-aged lady would get anyone fired up. It was a fairly comfortable lecture, snacking on the umaibo and the morinaga ramune sweets and shouting out answers when Dr. Kudo pointed around the class to call them out of the students.

 

The umaibo was probably the thing that did in the sore throat. Kotaro was aware of the worsening cough, which gradually turned chesty. It was alright at first, a few splutters as they tried to hold it in, turning into a good few seconds of sharp coughs – which didn’t go unaccompanied in the room considering that many others in the sea of students had contracted the season’s plethora of minor illnesses. It would have been nice if that was the end of it though.

 

Hijikata jumped sharply as Bokuto hacked like a perverted old man for a good minute or so, sinking down to grace their desk with their forehead. Nausea was beginning to set in with them, probably eating too much sweets or too much in general. When it ceased and their vision stopped swimming, they felt the tentative pat of Nobu’s hand, and the fuzzy embarrassment of what felt like an eternity of bringing up phlegm.

 

And they checked the murmuring silence, and the absence of Dr. Kudo’s upbeat chatter. They looked up to not only the concerned face of Nobu, but also that of the lecturer and several irate faces in the class. Sweat beaded at their upper lip and carved gouges down their temple, and the sensation of a flushed chill was emerging. Why now. Though, the excuse of having a sudden onset of illness was one that was tempting to use to escape talking to Kuroo. Though, feeling the curl of chyme bubble in their stomach, they were severely questioning how bad could telling Kuroo about this be?

 

“Kotaro?” Dr. Kudo looked up at him through the rims of her chunky glasses and thickly hooded lids.

 

They gave a measly “mmm” as a response as they desperately tried to keep their mouth shut. From all of Marina’s disgusting medical trivial, what they gathered is that you have less of a chance of vomiting if you keep your mouth shut and sit up.

 

She paused and made a few long strides, _tap tap tap_ , as she tread up the stairs in her little heals – leaning over with her salt and pepper hair to whisper to them.

 

“I think you need to go to the medical room and rest, are you ok? There’s a nasty bug going around this winter,”

 

“imm ok” They interjected, the hand clasped tightly over their mouth muffling their words. Out the corner of their eye, they noted Nobu sliding over a packet of tissues.

 

“If you want to insist on remaining in class for the last twenty minutes, in which I’ll tell you that you’re not missing much, you’ll have to move away from Nobu – if he gets a bad cough he’ll be back I hospital, and I know you don’t want to do that to a friend.”

 

As the sweat cascaded from their brow, Kotaro weighed the worth of each option. They sighed and picked up their notepad and pencil case to pack into their bag, groped to find their cane under the desk, and then turned to nod to Dr. Kudo to inform her.

 

“I’ll take you to the nurses’ office, you look like you might collapse.” She gently placed her palm on the back of their elbow as they passed in front of her. Turning to face the majority of the class she instructed them to continue reading the notes while she was away. Kotaro took this chance to slide Nobu’s offering of tissues into their pocket and waved as a silent thanks.

 

Freed by the emotional debt of having fifty or so people glower at you while you (involuntarily!) coughed, Kotaro just began to openly cough into a tissue like a heathen. Dr. Kudo still had her hand clasped firmly on their elbow – she’s definitely had experience with leading a shaky cane user – equal parts tutting and vexed looks.

 

However, when they passed by the toilets (fortunately enough) as they two bumbled along to the lift, Marina’s quick tips for not puking everywhere expired. It was all Bokuto could do to signal the older woman before pulling away from her and into the disabled bathroom – their retches were clearly audible through the locked door.

 

Leaning weakly over the toilet and holding onto the handrails, Kotaro desperately tried to bring up whatever was making them sick – but nothing came and the queasiness didn’t ease. They heard Dr. Kudo declare ,panicked, that she was going to get a first-aider up to them, so please don’t worry but will you be ok, I’ll only be gone for a moment. And in between the heave after heave of moist air, the heard her heels clatter away into the distance on the tile.

 

Every spare moment they had where they stopped retching was taken up by a furious cough that jolted and shook them. Kotaro wanted to stop, wanted it to stop – their breathing was turning interrupted and shallow and it was painful and their chest was starting to ache and ache and Dr. Kudo was never coming back and –

 

“Bokuto! We’re here, are you okay? Can you open the door please?” ah, it was Dr… Kudo?

 

“I can’t!” they shouted sharply in between – what was the difference between the retching and the coughing anymore. There was a fervent discussion outside, hushed by the door: something about needing to use the key, something about potential danger, something about a doctor.

 

The door swung open, and Kotaro lifted their head just enough to see a nurse in uniform dangling a chock-full keychain, Dr. Kudo lingering behind. They exchanged words too fast for Bokuto to catch. She ran off. Their vision was shaded with black just on the edges as they caught the tail of her, jogging back down the hall.

 

Coughing fits became more violent as the nurse squatted down to feel their forehead, and bombard them with an array of questions. The churning ache under their ribs and in the middle of their chest grew and grew and they tried to answer what they cold ( “ _no it was only like this today_ ”) they really did (“ _I’m n-ot ah ah asthmatic_ ”) they could swear it (“ _I couldn’t throw up any- th ing_ ”).

 

And to praise them to replace that smudge of black – god turned their whole vision to be a rain of gold. And each and every sound was so far and so faint. And their chest was seized up and it was locked and it was agony and they weren’t coughing, and they weren’t on the cusp of throwing up, and they weren’t sitting upright anymore, and they weren’t. Taking in. enough oxygen.

 

They were on the floor with ellipses whirling around to intoxicate them and their diaphragm wasn’t letting them take in anything or enough or anything and that nurse was yelling into a walkie talkie, a sweaty hand on their shoulder that didn't feel like theirs and they heard the word “cardiac arrest”.

 

And it was minutes and it was hours and oh it was their entire lifetime and still,

 

“ I _[gasp]_ can’t br _[gasp]_ eathe _[gasp]_ ”

 

And their hearing cleared enough for a moment to hear,

 

“We’re _getti_ ng you help, try to _br - the w_ ith me ok _? Dee_ ply j _u-_ “

 

" **HELP** _[choke]_ **ME** "

 

They were dying. They wouldn’t make that 6pm phone call and they regretted it now. What time was it. They were dying they couldn’t breathe what time was it. 4pm at most they couldn’t. breathe. A devil had taken their heart and crushed it, oni buried their spiked clubs into their chest and they couldn’t see except gold or hear and

 

They

 

Couldn’t

 

Bre-

 

-athe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tracklist while i was writing this (if you wanted it):
> 
> * Learning by Perfume Genius
> 
> * God's Hand by Hot Sugar 
> 
> * Familiars by The Antlers, and especially the song Palace from this album really resonates with me on this topic (kinda Hotel as well).
> 
> * Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous by Lullatone
> 
> any questions etc etc about Bokuto's orientations + gender, and i'd love it if people wanted to ask more about Marina too, and i'll also reply to that in the comments!
> 
> also purple drank: it is a class C drug - it's cough syrup containing coedine (an opiate) mixed with soda and candy and served in parties, but incredibly easy to overdose on because you don't feel it as much when you dance.
> 
> B60751A is the module/class code for the Brain Sectioning and Behaviour class, it's the same thing if anyone is wondering what this means. outside of this fic? it means absolute zilch.
> 
> also before JHS vs. EDS vs. hypermobility/spectrum starts; there is a disparity and difference in doctors to classify each - some say JHS is EDS, and some claim that the former is a milder version of the latter on the same spectrum. I've take them here to mean the same thing.

**Author's Note:**

> oho.... ohohoho.... im completely dead inside thanks 4 reading!


End file.
